The TIMSS video study analyzes the different teaching styles used in American, German, and Japanese classrooms. The main goal of the video is to gather information about the classrooms and the different techniques and practices used in the classroom. Many suggestions have been given to education professionals, however, we do not know if they actually implement in the classroom. The video is useful is figuring out how teachers are actually teaching their students and if they are even using these suggested teaching tips. The video is also going to be able to allow us to compare teaching styles across the country and figure out why Japan schools test extremely higher than American schools. The TIMSS video will be directly examining teaching methods and classroom instruction.
During the study, schools were carefully chosen. Each class chosen within a school would be taped for only one lesson. Teachers were to try and keep the class that was going to be filmed as normal as possible. Teachers were informed of the main goal of this study and if they altered their normal lesson plan in any way it would effect the results of the study in a negative way. Teachers were even given a questionnaire to fill out about the lesson they taught the previous day and about the one they would teach the following day. This checked to see if the lesson that was being filmed was changed or made to be "special" in any way.
There was a final result of 27 tapes to be analyzed by a team of 6 code developers, two from each country. From the tapes, they were going to watching for how the teachers instruct and implement lessons in their classroom and compare them to each country. They would simply watch a tape, discuss and analyze it, and then watch another. However, the discussion part sometimes took quite a while, sometimes it would take a day or more just to get through one lesson.
In the end, a professor of mathematics education, brought forth a great discovery from the TIMSS videos. He had discovered a comparison between the teaching styles off all three countries. In the Japanese lessons he said, the teachers seemed to take a step back in instructing their students. They allowed their students to use their own procedures for problem solving. In German teaching, the teachers give out many facts and explanations to very advanced mathematical problems. The teacher in a way spits out information at the students. In United States lessons, he noticed that there was less requirement for mathematical reasoning. He observed interactions between teacher and student, but struggled finding the mathematics.
So far, just from reading the first chapters, I feel that this book focuses strongly on mathematics. However, I feel they are going to focus this books is how to improve teaching techniques. Therefore, I believe that this book could help improve any subjects teaching, not just mathematics. The researchers who performed this study believe that the main problem in education today stems from the quality of teaching. If teaching can be analyzed and we can locate some of the main problems, we can formulate ways to improve our teaching in those areas. And then hopefully, if we center our focus on improving these issues, we can improve student learning.
During the study, schools were carefully chosen. Each class chosen within a school would be taped for only one lesson. Teachers were to try and keep the class that was going to be filmed as normal as possible. Teachers were informed of the main goal of this study and if they altered their normal lesson plan in any way it would effect the results of the study in a negative way. Teachers were even given a questionnaire to fill out about the lesson they taught the previous day and about the one they would teach the following day. This checked to see if the lesson that was being filmed was changed or made to be "special" in any way.
There was a final result of 27 tapes to be analyzed by a team of 6 code developers, two from each country. From the tapes, they were going to watching for how the teachers instruct and implement lessons in their classroom and compare them to each country. They would simply watch a tape, discuss and analyze it, and then watch another. However, the discussion part sometimes took quite a while, sometimes it would take a day or more just to get through one lesson.
In the end, a professor of mathematics education, brought forth a great discovery from the TIMSS videos. He had discovered a comparison between the teaching styles off all three countries. In the Japanese lessons he said, the teachers seemed to take a step back in instructing their students. They allowed their students to use their own procedures for problem solving. In German teaching, the teachers give out many facts and explanations to very advanced mathematical problems. The teacher in a way spits out information at the students. In United States lessons, he noticed that there was less requirement for mathematical reasoning. He observed interactions between teacher and student, but struggled finding the mathematics.
So far, just from reading the first chapters, I feel that this book focuses strongly on mathematics. However, I feel they are going to focus this books is how to improve teaching techniques. Therefore, I believe that this book could help improve any subjects teaching, not just mathematics. The researchers who performed this study believe that the main problem in education today stems from the quality of teaching. If teaching can be analyzed and we can locate some of the main problems, we can formulate ways to improve our teaching in those areas. And then hopefully, if we center our focus on improving these issues, we can improve student learning.